Just Remember Me
by Fiara Fantasy
Summary: Jack's dead. The Doctor heard him die. They hadn’t had a funeral, or a wake, or even talked. The least the Doctor could do for Jack was remember him.


The Doctor checked once again that Rose was asleep before he headed down a hallway that hadn't used to be there. He hadn't been able to do this yet, the grief had been too fresh for both of them, but now seemed right for some reason. There was a familiar door at the end of the hallway, shiny black with filthy words written on it in 32nd century magic marker that the TARDIS wouldn't translate. He paused outside for a moment, before opening it.

Nothing had changed since its occupant had died. The bed was still unmade and had the red and purple sheets on it that Jack had picked up on some colony they'd gone to in the forty-second century. The magic marker that had often written things on TARDIS doors that made her make sounds of her equivalents of indignant squeals and laughter, was on the floor as if he'd thrown it in through the door on the run. She'd never let him take off the words, but she wouldn't translate them either. Somehow the Doctor suspected Jack had spent as much time flirting with his ship as he had with him and Rose.

He took a tentative step inside. Nothing happened, and he released a breath he didn't know he was holding. A rug squished under his feet, not the furry monstrosity Rose had always teased Jack about possibly having. The things Terran pop culture came up with…

The rug was actually flat and black, shot through with stripes of silver. Jack had a metal working bench along one wall covered in wires and bits of pirated machinery, who knows or wants to know from where, that looked as if he'd had a grand project in mind and had never got the chance. His Captain's hat was on a hook on the wall.

The Doctor quietly moved to lie down on the bed. If Jack had known what it took to get him in his bed, he wondered what he would have thought. They hadn't had a funeral, or a wake, or even talked. The least the Doctor could do for Jack was remember him.

Talking to the nanogenes along with everything else had managed to wear the Doctor out. He'd only been asleep a few moments when something woke him and his hand instinctively began to crush the nearby throat. Jack had been scared enough he broadcasted his thoughts in a mental scream through the entire room. He didn't even know he'd done it, but the doctor heard it and let him go. As first impressions went, it could have been worse.

_Jack hadn't expected to find the Doctor asleep on a chair in the console room. He'd been hoping to find out where and when he was most likely getting dropped off at. Instead he was staring quietly as one of the strangest people he'd ever met, (and that was saying something), slept curled on his side with one hand wrist-up by his face like an angel. Jack carefully stepped forward, staying quiet even with heavy boots on metal grate from years of practice, and shrugged out of his RAF coat before draping it over the Doctor's sleeping form. The Doctor sighed in his sleep and snuggled into the remaining body heat of the coat. Jack allowed a private soppy smile to steal over his face. Without really thinking he leaned forward and brushed his lips across the Doctor's cheek…_

… and suddenly found a hand wrapped around his neck. Jack gasped as the Doctor sat up, eyes burning into him like the cold touch of knives. The hand tightened ever so slightly, but it was enough to cut off the rest of Jack's air. His lungs began to burn before there was a flash of recognition in the Doctor's eyes and he let go. Jack dropped to his knees and gasped welcome air into his lungs. The Doctor haphazardly shifted the coat tighter around himself.

"Thanks."

Jack just blinked at him.

The bar had been almost pathetically empty. Rose was shopping and Jack had grinned and dragged him away, telling Rose they'd meet back at the TARDIS. It was the first time they'd been alone together since last night when Jack came aboard.

They'd been doing shots for about an hour now. Jack was no lightweight, but the Doctor was starting to feel sorry for him. Alcohol really didn't do anything to him until it reached a strength that would kill a human if they had a swallow, and even then, he only stayed drunk about a minute. At least Jack was quiet. Who knows what Jack would say if he ever lost that tight hold he had over his tongue.

"So when are you going to drop me off?"

That was not what the Doctor had been expecting Jack to say. So he said something else.

"Thought even you would be drunk by now."

"Not really. Went straight to hung-over. Mostly. Figured you would have dropped me off all ready. I'd like to go back to WWII. Maybe to the Pacific, haven't been there yet. I love that time period. Do you know why?"

This… was not expected. "No."

"Because back then there was still a code to war. People had honor and personal pride, things that disappeared and we never get them back. Back then you didn't kill women and children or torture wounded men. You fought with soldiers on the battle field and that was all. I keep going back there because I never had that. Children were tortured for information just as if they were soldiers themselves. Honor died. So did chivalry. I never got to experience it except in that war. So I loved it. And I'd go back and do it again."

The Doctor continued to frown at Jack. This was not something you got from con-men. Not something he'd expected from the playboy Captain.

"Early fifty-first century. You know how bad it was if you know your history. And I hope you do because the universe seems to have been left in your hands! Doesn't that suck?"

"Yeah, it does. Let's head back to the TARDIS."

He grabbed Jack by the arm and pulled him to his feet. To the mans credit, he only swayed a little.

"So I'm coming along again?"

A strange lisp had overshadowed the American accent he used. The Doctor wondered if that was Jack's real accent from wherever he really came from.

"Yeah. Not dropping you off in the middle of a war."

Jack dropped his head onto the Doctor's shoulder.

"Well that's sweet of you."

Then he passed out.

Maybe a week later, Rose was having a nightmare again. The TARDIS always let him hear her, although Rose would never know about it. He began to walk to her room, but when he reached her door it was already open.

Jack was kneeling on the floor next to Rose's bed whispering a song. It was soft rhythmic nonsense but obviously meant something to Jack; he smiled to himself while he sang. Rose's frown smoothed out and she quieted, her whimpers turning to a low sigh as she fell into deep sleep.

The Doctor slipped away before Jack saw him, but not before he glimpsed the Captain press a kiss to Rose's head.

Somehow he didn't even feel jealous.

It had been two weeks now and it was starting to feel normal to have the Captain around, even if he was nothing normal.

"Jack? What are you doing?"

Jack glanced up then twisted over to lie on his back, careful of the gently pulsating ropes and tubes of wires piled around him. He grinned up at the Doctor lazily and ran his tongue along the length of the thickest wire.

"What do you think I'm doing?"

The Doctor simply gaped a moment.

"Jack, I didn't need to see that!"

The other man had only laughed.

Kyoto was fun.

They went to a restaurant, had some sushi, wore the wrong clothes, got arrested, and ran all the way back to the TARDIS.

Jack and Rose were laughing so hard they had to sit down. Rose's smile made something inside warm, like it always did, but he caught the way Jack's eyes glittered like gems in the TARDIS light and felt something else clench, in a not at all unpleasant way.

Where the _hell_ had that come from?

The station was a living hell now. He was so close, yet so far away. If he succeeded people died, if he failed people died.

A heart stopped when he heard Jack run out of bullets.

Then came the unforgettable sound of Dalek weapon fire.

In all the battles, in the entire Time War, Jack was the only one he'd heard who didn't scream.

Somehow that made it so much worse.

In the present, the Doctor blinked back tears.


End file.
